The Stirling engine poised for a breakout?

Stirling engines were a hot topic during the Segway frenzy of 2001, but since …

I first heard about Stirling engines at probably about the same time most people in the general public heard of them, i.e. during the frenzy of speculation regarding the exact nature of inventor Dean Kamen's allegedly world-changing invention. Wired and others reported that IT (or "Ginger," as it was also called) would be some kind of Stirling engine-powered scooter, so for a few months everyone and their grandmother had at least heard the term "Stirling engine."

When the Segway was finally unveiled and we all learned that the TOP SEKRIT UBER-DEVICE was a two-wheeled scooter type thing, there was a massive hype implosion of a magnitude that has only since been rivaled by the release of the final Matrix movie. Still, Kamen had filed for a handful of Stirling-engine related patents, so there was some speculation about a possible Stirling-related follow-up.

Kamen may yet be working on something Stirling-engine-related, as the aforementioned patents would suggest. But he's not the only person with Stirling on the brain. The EET is running a lengthy article on a DOE-sponsored project that combines Stirling engines with solar power to produce what may well be a full-blown replacement for fossil fuel-based electricity production.

Under a multiyear Energy Department contract that started in 2004, Stirling Energy Systems will supply Sandia National Laboratories with solar dishes for integration into full-fledged power-generation substations capable of direct connections to the existing U.S. power grid. Right now about 20 EEs, including more than a dozen from Stirling Energy Systems, are working full time at Sandia to create the electrical-control systems to manage these sunshine stations.

By the end of 2005, they plan to have six dishes connected into a miniature power station capable of supplying enough 480-volt three-phase electricity to power about 40 homes (150 kW). The next step, in 2006, is a 40-dish power plant that will transform the combined output of the farm from 480 to 13,000 V, for distribution of industrial-level power to an existing substation. From 2007 to 2010, the program proposes mass-producing dishes to create a 20,000-dish farm supplying 230,000 V of long-haul power from its own substation directly connected to the grid. If the project succeeds, the DOE predicts that by 2011, Stirling solar-dish farms could be delivering electricity to the grid at costs comparable to traditional electricity sources, thereby reducing the U.S. need for foreign sources of fossil fuels.

Read the rest of the article to see just how close these guys are to turning the Stirling engine into a commercially viable electricity source. It appears to be one of those things, like broadband over power lines, that sounds almost too good to be true but is actually feasible.

If you want to know how Stirling engines work, I recommend this article at Howstuffworks.com. It has some nice interactive flash animations that will give you the basics, and from there you can hit this website and buy a nice Victorian-style brass Stirling engine for your parlor.